Page file..????

[Felicity]

CC, this is probably a really stupid question, but what does this mean, and why does it sometimes change in MB that is used:

Page file: 786MB used, 3153 MB available.

Does it have anything to do with ram at all?
And if not, what "page" is it referring too?

Sorry if I sound like a complete

Felicity

[CharlieChomper]

It's definitely not a stupid question in the least bit!

It's somewhat difficult to fully describe without getting into other technical details, but all operating systems use a system known as "paging" as well as "swapping" going between memory (RAM) and "storage" (hard drive) and are part of your system's "virtual memory". Basically, you wouldn't really be able to game or run any number of other applications without its existence.

Virtual memory is one of those terms, however, where there tends to be some confusion as to what it actually does as Microsoft (for whatever reason) opted to use that term to describe what in reality is the swap file (this goes back to Windows 3.x days). In reality, you're not changing the size of your virtual memory which is going to be a "set" amount--you're actually changing certain characteristics whether it's the size of the swap or the paging file.

However, the process of paging, itself is very basically "saving" bits of virtual memory that's inactive to the hard drive and then "restoring" them to the RAM when those processors are called upon again. There are a few other things it does as well, but that's its main purpose (swapping, in contrast has historically been the actual process of moving pages between the two components). In the Unix/Linux "family" of operating systems, both terms likewise take on slightly different meanings.

In short and to answer your question more directly, the numbers you're seeing are referring to the physical amount of space on the hard drive that has been set aside on your hard drive for what in other operating systems would refer to as the "swap file" (which Microsoft mislabeled "Virtual Memory") which Windows adjusts accordingly depending upon what you're running at a given time (it can also be manually adjusted or set as well).

Sorry for getting into such a technical explanation of things or if any bit of it may come across as confusing but this is actually a fairly large topic that's hard to fully describe without getting into more technical terms than I even used.

[xmasqueen]

Good question and a nice clear explanation. Even I understood exactly what you were getting at.

[Felicity]

Oh thank you CC!

You actually explained it very well. I always wondered what it was about, and no-one that I have asked here at home could really tell me exactly for my poor little untechnical brain!

Felicity

Edited to fix bad grammar!

[CharlieChomper]

You're very welcome.